Video: "Crystal Arms," Tunnels

This is what it sounds like when an experimentalist goes pop. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't sound much like what anyone else would label "pop."

Nick Bindeman is probably best known in Portland as a member of space-rockers Eternal Tapestry and longstanding improv-freaks Jackie-O Motherfucker (whose new record, Earth Sound System, came out this week -- hear it here), but he has also produced a lot of music on his own under the name Tunnels. His previous work ranges from ambient drones to full-on psychedelic madness, but the upcoming The Blackout--dropping August 16 on Thrill Jockey, the label that also released Eternal Tapestry's stoner mindfuck Beyond the 4th Door earlier this year--finds Bindeman getting a little groovy. Opening track "Crystal Arms" is a dark, minimalist synth jam in the vein of Suicide and Gary Numan, and the video for it is a murky pastiche of faces that looks like something coming out of James Woods' TV in Videodrome.